Nikolai's Notes

Well, mommy has had some concerns that perhaps the group she fosters for does not screen homes properly, but she didn't learn the information that confirmed that was the case until after Sparks and Stormy went to their new homes. So let us hope they and the other kitties she fostered are, indeed, in good homes and okay.
It turns out there was no home check, no reference checks, no call to the adoptive owner's vet, no calls to landlords to confirm, yes, indeed, this person can have a cat.
So, yeah...that basically means to mommy, that these kittens were SOLD, not adopted.
And there have been painful consequences. Mommie's good friend fosters for the same group. One of her friend's kitties got adopted to a person who lost him within 5 days. This "adopter" did not report him lost to the fostering organization, as she was supposed to. She did not post fliers, or post on Craig's list lost and found, or do anything at all. A friend of hers finally reported the loss of the cat to the foster group almost 2 weeks after he was lost, and luckily, they called my friend, who started doing all the stuff you are supposed to do to find a cat.
It turns out the adopter is pretty nuts. My friend says she would not have approved of her home if she had seen it, as it is near a heavily forested area crawling with coyotes. Mommy doesn't know about that, but is concerned that this adopter did not help at all in the search for her own cat. My mommy went over there today to try to talk the adopter into giving her something with the kittie's scent on it, so a search dog could be used. The adopter wasn't home, so mommy left her a note and looked for the kitty, to no avail. Mommy was very happy when her friend, the former foster mom of the kitty, called to say she herself had found the kitty! Needless to say, that kitty will not be returned to the adopter who violated her adoption agreement by not reporting him lost.
Our mommy rather wishes she'd been able to meet the adoptive owner. Mommy used to work in mental health, and can usually tell if someone is too loopy or unkind or careless to be trusted with a cat. She wonders if she would have been able to tell. One thing that should have been a big red light to the group she fosters for is that there are some questions about declawing on the application, and the woman was not against that. Did the kitty claw her furniture, trying to get some scent markings in his new home, then oops, out the garage door he just happened to escape...on "accident?" Why else would she not report it? I think she let him out, because she didn't want him anymore.
Anyway, mommy has been worried that perhaps the homes weren't being screened properly, and suspects all this could have been avoided if they were. She is not going to foster for that group anymore, or adopt Lilly out through them. She "owes" them $85 for Andre's adoption fee, her own foster, who has blindisums and a weepy eye, and is thus, unadaptable to anyone but her, and who has only cost the foster organization $40, at most. So she is annoyed at that, all the hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours she has spent on fostering for this group, and they didn't take a few minutes to make sure her babies, who she told every day would go to good homes who could do better for them than she could, really went to the kind of homes she promised them. Mommy is so worried about them all.
Anyway, enough complaining. Her friend's former foster is alright, he survived being a stray, once again, thank goodness.

Sorry for the poor sentence structure, mommy is tired from all this.

We are hoping Minnie and Muppet will recover from their health conditions really soon. Get well, pretty girls.

Mommy processed a duck today, and she gave us the heart and liver and neck. Yum! Andre drug the neck all over the floor and was being too gross playing with it instead of eating it, so mommy threw that away. Silly Andre!
-Nikolai

Sparks and Stormy were adopted! The family has 2 twin 9-year-old girls. Hopefully that is old enough to understand that Sparks and Stormy are special kittens who are a little more flighty and independent than other kittens. Mommy wrote that in their bio, anyway. She expects they are young enough to become more people-centric.
Yeah! May they live long, happy lives in their new home.
Nikolai

Mommy is back from cat sitting. She did not loose any of the 68 cats, and their owner said they seemed pretty happy.
The gray kittens (we don't call them the feral kittens anymore) are back, as they were not adopted as we'd hoped. Andre likes to lay in a heap with them. They really love each other. It is pretty cute.
Well,mommy has a lot of things she needs to do that have been accumulating while she was gone. She really needs to get some cat collars up for sale, among other things. We were also promised a duck dinner in return for being such good kitties while she was gone.
-Niko

So I hear mommy feels guilty...about some other cat!
Two of the 68 kitties she is taking care of are sick. One is a 3 year old torti, with some kidney problem. Mommy has to force feed her, give her fluids, and every 3 days, an appetite stimulant. The other is a tiny gray kitten with big green eyes, named Hummel. He gets .5ml clavamox twice a day for URI. He is in a pretty small cage. Mommy has been considering off and on putting some toys in his cage, but he just sits there in his bed, and his breathing is still rapid, and she was thinking he'd either feel too sick to play, or that he'd play a bit and collapse, breathing too hard. So today mommy finally gave him some toys, and he started playing right away, just fine. Oh mommy feels so very bad, now. Thinking of that bored kitten brain, with no playmates and no toys, just sitting there watching the kitties outside his cage since Wednesday when she could have given him toys right away. It made mommy start to cry, just thinking of it. She needs to work on thinking of more than just a sick kittie's physical needs, or she is a terrible nurse. In any case, she is unlikely to forget this lesson. It would have been easy enough for her to remove a toy had the kitten become over-exerted, and well worth the risk. Besides that, if he had toys he would have started to play and mommy could have been cued in to how much better he was feeling without having to guess. Mommy sure has a lot to learn. Poor, neglected Hummel!
-Nikolai

So mommy came by today. A good thing, because we ate all our food. She had to replace one of the 2 big bowls with a giant bowl, the kind for making cakes and stuff. She thinks we must be eating extra right now. I ran past her a couple times, but would not let her touch me, I just to make it clear how I felt. She took a nap with us, though, and by the time she left we all thought she was home for good. Then she left us again! I'm glad those 68 cats don't let her sleep, she is a bad mommy to leave us.
-Niko

It took mommy running around from 6 A.M. until 6 P.M., but she got the two feral kittens fixed, and secured another 3 in 1 vaccine for them, and went to a job interview, and was briefed on a different job she is doing for just a week, all while waiting on the kittens. Both jobs are temp jobs, but anything is better than nothing. Mommy is a little sad that the shop she applied for is selling some things that were made in China, but I guess she'll have blood on her hands like everyone else until either the PRC changes or we stop trading with them, and those are both long shots. It is sad cruelty is so profitable and far-reaching and goes unpunished. What is the matter with humans, anyway?
Anyway, they promised to contact people soon about the job, and the kittens' feline leukemia tests were negative, and they came through the operation fine, so those are all good things.
Mommy says she got 3 good books at garage sales this weekend. One is of W.C. Fields quotes, one on is about a guy who was at Pearl Harbor during the bombing, like her own grandpa and her former grandpa in law, and one is on Eastern Oregon, where she is entertaining moving to if she can get more income, somehow, perhaps with some sort of Internet job. There are big houses with acreage there for rent, cheap, with more room for fostering cats, and room for the goats, to. We could have homemade goat cheese, mmmmm! Oh well, me and mom's pipe dream. We like it when mommy gets books, because she sits still to read them, and that means lap time! Books and kitties, her favorite things.
XXXOOO-Nikolai

The two foster kittens are due for their 3 in 1 booster. Mommy has only 1 vial of vaccine.So yesterday, she stopped at a feed store to get another. They did not have the right thing. Then she went to another store. They did not have it. So she kept on driving to a feed store she KNEW had it, because she saw it there the other day.
The only box they had expired August 10th. The lady gave it to mommy for free, and called a vet to see if it was safe to use. She told mommy she'd call her with the results when the vet called her back, because the vet was out.
That evening, the lady called and told mommy her vet said it would be safe and effective as a vaccine, still. Mommy called our vet for a second opinion, and the receptionist said he didn't advise using expired vaccines, and said they were very temperature sensitive, and that if the kitty develops whatever disease they were vaccinated for and the vet gave the vaccine, the manufacture would pay for treatment, and if you give it at home, they will not.* And bad reactions are more likely with expired vaccine. But, the vet also gives a 5 in one or some such ridiculous thing, and mommy thinks spacing vaccines out is better, there seem to be more bad reactions to the 4+ vaccines. So does he know what he is talking about? The vet also charges $15 each for vaccines. Brutal! So mommy is scared out of using the expired vaccine, and now will have to think of what to say to the nice lady who thought she was doing her a good deed by giving them to her next time she sees her. Now, she also has to figure out how to get both cats their boosters.
The group she fosters for is doing their vaccine clinic Saturday, but they are 40 minutes away, and she can't really afford to drive that far and back, especially as she has to take them 45 minutes away Monday to be tested and fixed, and drive a further 1/2 hour away to go to a job interview while she is waiting. All that is going to take a lot of gas, and she can scarcely afford it.
So, it is pretty frustrating. If someone just sold this stupid $3 vaccine she could just do it now and not worry about it.
OMC, mommy just thought of a 4th feed store she hasn't tried yet. My goodness, I guess she'll have to walk down there. It never ends! Update: Cripes, they wanted 8.95 for that shot! The other feed store was selling them for 3 something. And a very large, stupid dog was licking mommy's legs while she was waiting in line, and would not go away when she told it to, and poking her in the butt with its nose.There were 5 or 6 other people in the store, why did the dog come pester her? Cripes.
-Nikolai

*When all those kitties got cancerous growths from defective vaccine, were their humans compensated by the manufacturer? I don't recall, though mommy met a fellow whose poor kitty was a victim. This is also why she will not vaccinate on the neck injection site.

Oh, and thanks to everyone who sent birthday gifts! I just now noticed them and many are yummy.
My mommie's conscious mind has been very busy. As a matter of fact, I think she was busy filing for divorce on the 30th. She forgot my birthday! But right around the 30th she told me what a handsome, mature-looking cat I had become, and told me how much Vincent would have liked to see what a beautiful man-cat I've grown to be. Sniff, I still miss my Vincent, I guess I always will. -Nikolai

Mommy was so sorry to hear Mr. Louis Le Beau lost his long, brave battle with cancer.
He was a lucky boy to be among the minority who gets to have a good, loving home. He seemed to know it, and to work extra hard to fill his home with love and joy, and hang onto life with every claw.
Mommy loves all the kitties in the world, but the orange boys hold a special place in her heart. Two of her very best childhood friends, and, dare I say, mentors, were orange boys.
Rest in peace, Louis, you were an inspiration to us all.